


your eyes are like starlight now

by niallszayn (farfromthstars)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:21:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21872905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfromthstars/pseuds/niallszayn
Summary: drunk friends, a forced christmas duet and one touch is all it takes.
Relationships: Niall Horan/Zayn Malik
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	your eyes are like starlight now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PigSlay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PigSlay/gifts).



> merry christmas, anna, i hope you like your secret santa gift! thank you jamila for organising this, i thought it was a wonderful idea!!  
> happy holidays everyone :)

“The Twelve Pubs of Christmas” is the one Irish tradition Niall had no trouble getting all of his friends in London on board with - granted, loads of them are Irish anyway, but the idea of a Christmas themed pub crawl went over spectacularly well with the others as well, the first time he suggested it.

Which is how he ends up, pretty sloshed and wearing a horrible Christmas jumper as well as red, flashing reindeer antlers, in a karaoke bar shortly after midnight on December 21st.

Conor and Jake are basically undressing each other again on the other side of the table - for laughs, as they keep saying - while Willie, Deo and Bird seem to be having a serious conversation right next to them. Harry’s head is heavy on Niall’s shoulder and Liam’s trying to pull off one of Harry’s rings without him noticing. Niall watches them, amused, and listens to the girl currently wailing on stage. It’s supposed to be “All I Want for Christmas”, but it’s typical karaoke after midnight quality, so not very good anymore. 

He takes a sip of his Guinness and nudges Harry’s head off his shoulder, both because he’s getting too hot and because he wants to watch him and Liam fight over the ring that Liam’s just slipped off. On stage, two guys are butchering “Last Christmas” now, and Harry accidentally slaps Niall’s chest with the back of his hand.

“Ow!” Niall complains, and Harry waves his hand dismissively in his direction.

Willie leans over the table to ask Niall, “Did you plan to get to a Christmas themed karaoke thing tonight?”

“Nah,” Niall says, and he didn’t - he loves his karaoke, but not necessarily mixed in with his twelve pubs of Christmas. “You gonna sing, Willie?”

Willie grins. “Should ask you that, with your golden voice.”

Niall rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer him. 

~

“This is bloody tacky,” Louis mutters and Zayn nudges him with his elbow.

“You chose it, quit complaining,” he says. “If anyone gets to complain it’s me, third-wheeling on your date.”

“You’re not third-wheeling, Z,” Eleanor says, leaning around Louis and patting Zayn’s hand. “We hang out all the time just the three of us.”

It’s true, Louis’ been his best friend since childhood and since he’s found his soulmate, the two of them have been a package deal. It’s a good thing El is fucking brilliant. Being introverted and liking his personal space isn’t great in a world where people find their soulmate through touch, Zayn’s learned this in the almost 27 years of his life. It’s not like it’s taking him unusually long (no one’s sure if there really is that one person for everyone, and many people never find their soulmates), but it sure is more likely to happen if you’re like Louis and constantly all over people. And despite his best attempts at hiding it, Zayn’s a big romantic on the inside and knowing his soulmate might be out there makes him really want to find them. Ever since Louis found Eleanor, he’s kind of been dreaming about it.

In the front of the pub, two guys start dueting on “Last Christmas”, and Louis groans while Eleanor laughs at him.

“Starting to regret this now,” he admits, and Zayn grins at Eleanor.

They’ve been here for almost two hours already, in the beginning Louis was still drunk enough to a) convince Zayn and Eleanor to go inside and b) get on stage and sing “Jingle Bell Rock” enthusiastically. He’s since sobered up enormously.

“Right,” Zayn says, looking at his half empty drink. “Shall we go after this?”

“You haven’t sung anything yet,” Eleanor says. “You know how I love hearing you sing.”

“Not tonight, El,” Zayn mumbles, embarrassed. 

“Everybody,” someone shouts into the mic at the front of the pub, making Zayn jump as the stage lights start flickering across the audience. “We’ve got another special treat coming up for our Christmas Special tonight! For the next song, we’ll let the lights choose two of you to sing a duet. What’s a classic Christmas duet? Anyone? Yes, you guessed it: two lucky people will get to duet on “Baby It’s Cold Outside”!”

The room is immediately filled with a strange mixture of laughter and nervous energy, everyone wanting to watch someone else embarrass themselves on stage but hoping it won’t be them. Zayn feels like hiding under their table, but he thinks they’re pretty safe here in the back. The light beams barely reach them.

There are loud cheers as a bloke in the front gets selected, someone from a big table full of drunk people. All Zayn can see is those stupid flashing reindeer antlers on dark hair.

The whole room seems to hold its breath as the lights resume their search and the atmosphere feels unreal somehow, like all these drunk people shouldn’t be able to get this into a stupid game.

And then Zayn squints as the lights hit his face straight on for the first time, blinding him - and stay there. 

Fuck.

Louis cackles delightedly beside him and Eleanor squeezes his hand under the table, but she’s laughing too. They bodily shove him out of their booth to get him to go on stage, and Zayn does so numbly, vaguely registering the cheers of the people around him. 

On stage, the other guy is already waving at the audience cheerily, grin almost as bright as the stage lights. Through the haze of his anxiety, Zayn notices that he’s kind of cute. 

He turns towards Zayn when he stumbles onto the small stage, smile still as big, and says, “Nothing better to do with your Friday night than sing a song about date rape in a karaoke bar, huh?”

That startles a laugh from Zayn. This bloke clearly isn’t just some drunk idiot. 

“Couldn’t imagine a better way to spend it,” he replies, and then the girl with the microphone is between them, shoving two other microphones into their hands.

“Can I get your names, lads? Gotta announce the new duo to your adoring fans,” she says, laughter evident in her voice. 

“Niall,” the other bloke says, running a hand through his hair and accidentally knocking the antlers askew.

Zayn gives his own name and meets Niall’s eyes with a small grimace, which is rewarded with a loud laugh.

“Let’s do this, mate,” he says and the girl turns back to the audience.

“Everyone,” she calls into her microphone, “I present to you Niall and Zayn - let’s have it, boys!”

“Can you do the lower harmonies?” Zayn asks, leaning close to Niall whose eyes widen a little at the question.

“I hope so,” he grins, and Zayn does too. This is all for fun, yeah, but he doesn’t particularly enjoy making a fool of himself in front of this many people.

The first few chords of the song play through the speakers behind them and Niall winks at Zayn, who almost fumbles his first line, “I really can’t stay.”

Niall chimes in halfway with perfect timing and a beautiful voice, “but baby, it’s cold outside.”

And from there on, it’s surprisingly easy. Zayn ignores the somewhat stunned crowd as his and Niall’s voices weave through the lines and harmonise perfectly, as if they’ve practised this a hundred times. Niall’s grinning at him, acting up his flirty part, and Zayn catches himself thinking that if he were being snowed in with this guy somewhere, he’d probably stop protesting pretty quickly. He’s incredibly charming but reads Zayn’s cues and never goes too far with his performance, gives him his space even during the flirtiest (or pushiest) parts of the song. 

When they finish and Zayn takes note of the audience again, they’re going absolutely mad for them, and for a second, Zayn feels like he could join in. He’s not exactly sure what just happened, how he and Niall sounded this good together on their first try. It was easy, somehow, in a way that singing with someone else has never been and it’s a little weird but also kind of an exhilarating feeling. 

The girl from the bar compliments them off the stage to the yells and applause from the crowd (a lot of it seems to be coming from the table Niall sat at) and Zayn really looks at Niall for the first time since the song ended. He’s got a big smile on his face but his eyes look a little unsure, which makes Zayn think he probably feels the same odd mixture of things. 

“Mate,” Niall laughs breathlessly, “what the fuck was that?”

Zayn shakes his head and laughs too. “Fuck if I know!”

“Well done though, buddy,” Niall says, sounding impressed as he claps a hand on Zayn’s shoulder. “Beautiful voice you’ve got there.”

“You too,” Zayn says honestly, and Niall squeezes his shoulder. 

His thumb slips to the side as he starts to pull away, catching on the collar of Zayn’s jumper and brushing his skin. 

The whole world shifts a little bit to the left. 

Everyone knows that apparently you just _know_ when you meet your soulmate, but Zayn’s never heard anyone explain _how_ they knew. To him, it’s like within one second, absolutely everything changes its meaning just a little bit. Like there’s a layer of meaning he didn’t even know about. A whole range of emotions he didn’t know existed. A pull he’s never felt before. And it’s all focused on the guy in front of him. 

Niall’s still staring at him, eyes wide, hand hovering a few inches above Zayn’s shoulder. 

“Well, fuck,” he breathes, and Zayn lets out a helpless laugh. 

“Guess that explains it a bit?”

Before Niall can reply, Louis and Eleanor appear behind him, matching mad grins on their faces. 

“That was sick!” Louis shouts and Niall jumps, finally dropping his hand. Zayn looks away from him reluctantly to focus on his friends. “How’d you do that? I knew you were good, Z, but that was mad!”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, unsure of how to proceed, “um, Niall, this is Louis and Eleanor.”

There are the usual hellos, then Niall turns to Zayn with a cute tilt to both the corner of his mouth and his left eyebrow. His eyes are really quite blue. 

“So, Zayn, would you wanna-?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says and tells his friends, “Me and Niall are gonna talk for a bit, I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Louis narrows his eyes and opens his mouth, but El grabs his arm and says, “Of course! We’ll be back at our table if you want us.”

She drags him away and Zayn gives Niall a nervous smile. 

“So,” Niall says. 

“So,” Zayn repeats. “This is awkward innit?”

Niall laughs. “How do other people do this?”

“Really not sure,” Zayn says honestly. “Maybe I should’ve asked how Lou and El did it.”

“They totally thought you just wanted to hook up.”

“Maybe,” Zayn says, and feels like they’re heading towards dangerous territory. He’s been wanting to reach for Niall’s hand for a while now, and not just because he keeps fidgeting. “I don’t, though.”

“We’ve got time,” Niall smiles, “and I kind of wanna get to know you outside of a karaoke bar first.”

“Exactly,” Zayn agrees, and boldly reaches for Niall’s hand. He figures if there’s one safe person to do this with, it’s probably his soulmate. It feels odd to think that, _soulmate_ , when he never thought he’d be one of the lucky ones, but he likes the way it makes him feel, the way Niall’s made him feel since he stepped on that stage. 

“Soulmates,” Niall voices Zayn’s thoughts and pulls him a little closer by the hand. “Feels nicer than I imagined, somehow. Like, familiar somehow, like I’ve known you for ages instead of...huh, a few minutes, I reckon.”

“Feels like much more than that. But I also can’t wait to actually get to know you and ask about your life and your family and your friends…”

“You’re a little sappy, aren’t you? I love that, and I can’t wait either.” They’re still holding hands and possibly smiling at each other a little dumbly, so Zayn starts playing with Niall’s fingers. 

“Sappy as fuck,” he grins, and Niall tugs him even closer so there’s no more than a few inches between them. 

“I wanna find out all of those things about you too and I think it’s a great idea to get to know each other first,” Niall says, “but I’ve also kind of been wanting to kiss you since before we figured out this whole,” he gestures between them, “soulmate thing, so do you think we could move that a few steps up?”

Zayn doesn’t need any more encouragement and lifts his free hand to cradle Niall’s face. 

He’ll figure out what to tell Louis and Eleanor later, and Niall and him will figure out how to navigate being soulmates together. 

But for now, he just wants to be a person kissing a cute guy wearing flashing reindeer antlers in a karaoke bar to crappy Christmas music. 

  
  



End file.
